The Sun on Sunday (down 14 per cent on last April to 1,473,971), Sunday People (down 13 per cent to 323,608) and Daily Star Sunday (down 13 per cent to 254,238) were the worst performing.

The Times and Sunday Times, performing better than their rivals, were down 1 per cent to 393,826 and 3 per cent to 808,652 respectively.

Daily national newspaper circulations, April 2015

Newspaper

Average circulation, April 2015

Year or year percentage change

Bulks

Daily Mirror

881,545

-9.13

45,000

Daily Record

196,861

-10.28

4,951

Daily Star

419,985

-11.84

–

The Sun

1,857,700

-11.18

–

Daily Express

437,553

-10.22

–

Daily Mail

1,631,117

-5.26

74,039

The Daily Telegraph

486,025

-6.39

–

Financial Times

212,489

-5.24

22,587

The Guardian

176,157

-8.12

–

i

275,940

-3.92

63,278

The Independent

59,148

-6.65

16,150

The Times

393,826

-0.98

21,098

In the month ahead of the election, every daily tabloid newspaper bar the Daily Mail saw its average circulation drop from March's figures (the Daily Mirror, down 1.8 per cent month-on-month was the worst performing). Meanwhile, every 'broadsheet' title except the Financial Times was up month on month (The Daily Telegraph performed best, up 1.4 per cent).

It was a similar story among the Sunday newspapers, where The Mail on Sunday (up 0.2 per cent) and Sunday Express (up 0.1 per cent) were the only tabloids to put on sales compared with March, and The Sunday Telegraph was the only 'broadsheet' (down 0.9 per cent) to lose circulation.

The Sunday Times was the best newspaper in terms of month-on-month change, up 2.3 per cent.